


Kick the Habit

by Falconier111



Category: Helltaker (Video Game)
Genre: Addiction recovery, Drug Addiction, Friendship, Gen, Lots of Swearing (Zdrada), Smoking, blackberry pancakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25186576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falconier111/pseuds/Falconier111
Summary: Zdrada decides to stop smoking.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What do we know about Zdrada? A) she's an asshole, B) she smokes, and C) she's Malina's sister. But much of the fandom seems to hate her with a burning passion, way more than she deserves. So I decided to take a look.

“No, seriously, no way I could get that much smoke out of a cigarette. Look, I’ll show you.”

Zdrada followed the formula she’d perfected years before. Suck the smoke in. Hold it in the back of the mouth. Force smoke from her secondary lungs into the mix. Puff out a cloud that smelled more of brimstone than tobacco.

Azazel wrinkled her nose. “I can certainly smell the sulfur. And you say you generate it in your auxiliary respiratory system?”

“I dunno? I barely know what a respiratory system is, Az, I just have lungs I use to breathe smoke instead of air. I think making more smoke is just something my body can do. Like this.” She reached her hand out and started snapping her fingernails together; their metal content let off a tiny shower of sparks just barely visible in the night air. Never enough to give her a reliable light.

Azazel went back to scribbling in her notebook as Zdrada leaned back against Helltaker’s back wall, staring out into his yard. No trying to smoke in his house today; not in the mood to mess with him. She took another drag and let it out, normal this time, into the suburban quiet. Crickets chirped somewhere between the house and the trees that marked the property line.

“…You know I don’t even get a buzz from it anymore?” Azazel stopped writing, then picked up even more furiously. “Real strong at first, stronger than I think humans get, but nothing now. Still addicted though, I’ve been through withdrawal.”

“Withdrawal? You’ve tried to break the addiction?”

“Nah. Just hard to find smokes in the underworld sometimes, had to go without. I pick ‘em up the moment I find them or I get the sweats, turn into even more of a bitch, and that’s a hell of an achievement for me.”

Azazel let the irony of the profanity pass her by. “Why haven’t you tried to quit before?”

“…that’s a very personal question, Az. Probably time to back the fuck off.”

“Well, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to. As a demon, your biology should allow you to…” Zdrada tuned her grad student talk out and went back to her cigarette, then sucked, held, mixed, and blew straight into Azazel’s face. Azazel spent a few minutes wheezing after Zdrada turned away and stared into the yard; after a few unanswered questions she realized the interview was over and went back inside.

Zdrada looked out into the night, thinking.

***

“I don’t strike deals like that one, darling,” Beelzebub told her a few nights later, leaning against the closed back door above Zdrada and watching her stare into the night.

“That’s some bullshit right there. I know you struck a deal with Lucifer to get you out of that shithole she’d tossed you–“

“I’m afraid that was all Lucy, dear,” she cut in. “She’s the one that took the two of us out of there. I suppose she just wanted her beefcake back. Not that I blame her, those crepes are just to die for.” Beelzebub swooned dramatically, flaring out her coat just enough to show off the fly wing pattern inside it. Zdrada snorted scornfully without turning around and Beelzebub pouted at her back.

“Fuck you for deflecting that. Seriously, the fuck do you want? What you want that I can give you?”

“You could give me anything you want and I still couldn’t take it away from you.” 

Zdrada clenched her fists. “Yeah I fucking doubt that, you’re the most powerful demon out there except Lucifer and maybe Justice or Judgment.”

“I am so pleased you noticed! But they couldn’t do it either.”

“Fuck that! For fuck’s sake, you were there when demons first came into existence–“

“– And I didn’t make us as we are.” Beelzebub’s voice grew darker, more serious. Zdrada turned around and found her face oddly blank, her eyes facing Zdrada and seeing something else. But the expression soon vanished in favor of her characteristic grin, albeit sadder and more wistful than usual.

“As much as I’d like to make your life easier, Zdrada, I have no more power over your biology than you do. There’s nothing I can do to take away your nicotine addiction. I’m sorry, and I truly mean that. But I’ll strike you another, smaller deal.” Zdrada grunted noncommittally. “I know you fancy yourself too prickly to like and call yourself the Bitch Demon, but I happen to know you have several friends inside this very house. How about you go talk to them about helping you get through this, and I’ll get Helltaker to make some crepes just for you. This time with blackberries.”

“…how did you…?”

“Know you like them? Well, carry out your end of the bargain and maybe you’ll find that out, too.” With that, Beelzebub opened the door and swanned back inside, flaring her coat out again for a hopefully more appreciative audience. The sounds of Azazel exclaiming and rushing over to interview her on how she designed the pattern echoed out the door until it closed behind her. Zdrada turned back to the silent backyard and sat for a moment before opening her hand, looking at the crumpled, unlit cigarette it held, and sighed with frustration.

***

“…and that wouldn’t be the case if the nicotine patches fucking WORKED.”

Zdrada and Justice went at the foosball table with a vengeance as the sun set two days later. Zdrada still hadn’t figured out how Justice managed to slip the whole thing into the middle of Helltaker’s backyard without anyone noticing (“it’s because I’m awesome”).

“Yeah, demonic thaumatobiological processes can really fuck your shit sometimes,” Justice said. “You never know what will or won’t work, you know? And then it’ll turn around and stab you in the ass.”

“Yeah, exactly! Like, my blood irritates my skin. Why? It’s a hell of a design flaw. It’s like, every time I get another piercing I have to take care of it right or get, like, a blood sunburn – fuck!” Zdrada burst out as Justice sent the ball home yet again. She reached down, grabbed it, and dropped it on the table, and the game started again.

After a few minutes of frantic play, Zdrada said “You know I miss the feel of a cigarette? Not even smoking, just holding it there. Feels empty. I’m too used to having something in my mouth to suck on all the time… thanks for not making a joke there.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I would have cut you if you did.”

“You would have tried,” Justice said without rancor before scoring another point.

Zdrada snarled, putting her elbows on the table and her face in her hands.

“I just can’t FOCUS anymore. And the withdrawal symptoms JUST STARTED, I haven’t even hit the sweats yet.”

“You know, you might want to go talk to Lucy about how she quit smoking.”

“You know, you must be completely full of shit if you think I’m talking to Lucifer for life advice – wait, Lucifer used to smoke?”

“Yep, she started a few hundred years ago, right when the tobacco crop was first hopping hemispheres. This was just after I stepped down and Judgment took over, when I was still hanging around for the transition. She spent like a century puffing on her pipe and stinking the place up until we made her stop. It was a whole production.”

“…I’m sorry, the thought of Lucifer’s getting pushed around by her office staff is blowing my fucking mind.”

“It shouldn’t, it happens all the time. She’s not as much of a hardass as she likes to think. Anyway, she used to struggle with the same thing, so we had her chew on straw for a bit, and while I think you could probably pull off the farmer look–“

“I’m not looking like a fucking farmer.”

“–I didn’t think you’d be interested,” Justice continued smoothly. “So I recommend picking up a sucker or something, using that instead.”

“Fuck that, I’m not walking around with a lollipop stick halfway out of my mouth, what do you take me for?”

Justice opened her mouth to respond before shutting it, eyes widening behind her shades. The sounds of Cerberus enthusiastically greeting Helltaker reached Zdrada a moment later through her slightly addled senses.

“Oh hell,” Justice said, “he doesn’t know I put this in his yard just after he mowed it. Zdrada, I’m gonna have to ask you to head inside, I need to do a magic trick.”

Zdrada obliged, mumbling about farmers and how stupid the idea of sucking lollipops all day was.


	2. Chapter 2

Two days later, Zdrada sat on the back porch steps and watched Cerberus play their weird version of catch, gnawing on her sixth lollipop of the day. Much as she was loathe to admit it, they helped. As much as anything. She’d showered the night before and that morning to no effect; she stank, and though she didn’t usually care, the fact that the stench came from her building withdrawal sweat got under her skin. Like the itching. She couldn’t stop ITCHING.

Cerberus tossed their Frisbee back and forth in the summer sun, catching it with their hands before one of their bodies forgot herself and caught it with her teeth. They looked so bright and vivid and she felt so dim and gray and so fucking goddamn sweaty. She rubbed her numb fingertips together compulsively.

On a whim, Zdrada shifted the lollipop to the front of her mouth and tried to repeat the old formula. Suck, hold, mix… she spat the lollipop out as she choked on her own smoke. Cerberus abandoned their game and practically teleported to her side, bombarding her with questions until she finally shouted, “back the fuck off!” and sent them huddling several feet off. At first, Zdrada gloried in their fear; then her anger dimmed and she realized it wasn’t fear she saw in their eyes, but hurt. Her heart broke. Who could stay mad at a trio of well-meaning dog girls?

“I’m sorry, Cerberus… I’m just… I’m just having a really rough time right now.”

“Oh, right,” they said together as they approached her more sedately. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“No. I dunno. I just…” Zdrada leaned back, closed her eyes, and groaned. She opened them to find one of their bodies holding the Frisbee out to her. “Would you like to play?”

Zdrada looked at it for a second, took a deep breath, grabbed it, stood up, and threw it between the trees and through the window of a neighbor’s house. Two of Cerberus’s bodies ran after it, laughing and shouting and barking with excitement; the last stuck around long enough to say “You breathed fire out your nose like a dragon, it was really cool,” before running off to join the rest of them. Zdrada paused to figure that out, then forced more smoke out of her secondary lungs and breathed it out all at once. Watching the healthy little cloud slowly dissipate into the wind, she realized it now smelled like woodsmoke, not sulfur. She couldn’t help it. She laughed.

***

Lunch the next day was their weekly catered buffet, all the finest chefs of Hell rolling out their finest dishes for their CEO and her housemates. Granted, they stocked the house’s pantry most of the time anyway (to reduce the strain on Helltaker’s poor wallet), but today they took out the stops and flooded the backyard with tables, staff, and every kind of food Hell had to offer. Zdrada sat at her customary perch, staring mournfully at the festivities and absently picking at her lip piercing.

“You haven’t eaten anything.”

How the hell had Helltaker snuck up on her side like that? Her senses were more off than she thought.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Why not?”

“Because…‘cause – shut the fuck up.” She breezed, and almost froze when she realized she’d let something that lame slip out of her lips. Helltaker waited patiently at her side for her to continue. After a few minutes, Zdrada’s already abbreviated patience gave out and she gave the backyard a quick scan. All three parts of Cerberus had actually climbed onto the buffet tables and started rolling their way through the remaining dishes, only barely outpacing Judgment and one of Lucifer’s old bodyguards, up in the mortal realm to visit his former boss. The other guard was thoroughly schooling Justice at foosball (the table now placed with Helltaker’s permission) as Lucifer crowed. She could see Beelzebub bothering Malina about getting out more by the side of the house and Modeus and Pandemonica nestled in the trees across the yard, making out and feeding each other grapes they’d smuggled off the buffet table ahead of Cerberus; apparently they’d patched up their relationship again. Azazel was nowhere to be seen, as were the kitchen staff; she’d likely followed them in to interview them on the intricacies of the demonic culinary world again. Not one even faced the house.

“Okay, look. You know how nicotine withdrawal is supposed to make you hungry?” She paused for a response, then thought better of it and drove on. “For me it’s the opposite, demon biology I think, it’s not like I’m never hungry but I just don’t want to eat if there’s food in front of me, you know? I just… I’d be doing that,” she gestured at Judgment, who’d just casually backhanded a now-mortally offended Cerberus body away from a steamed anglerfish, “except I can’t make myself even walk up to the fucking table. I just…”

“You don’t want to show weakness.”

“…that’s a pretty aggressive read, but you’re right. And yes, I know nobody cares or thinks I’m weak, whatever… don’t worry about me. I can still get some simple stuff down, I’ll fill up on bread or something later.”

“You’ll fill up on these right now.”

She turned to give him a skeptical look and froze.

“Blackberry pancakes,” he said.

She took the paper plate and plastic fork carefully, almost reverently, from his hands, setting them down in her lap and staring in awe. Her stomach grumbled in response, and for the first time in days Zdrada felt truly, ravenously hungry.

She barely managed to force a “thank you” through a full mouth.

***

Early afternoon the next day, Zdrada took a seat on the back steps, listened a bit to see if anyone was moving around nearby (she knew better than to glance around, looks too suspicious), and dug the old cigarette carton out of her pocket. She carefully wiped her hands off on her shirt (the sweats were still around and much thicker than the human equivalent, she didn’t want that getting on her cig), reached in, and fished out one of the three spare cigarettes to contemplate. She didn’t remember buying the carton. She didn’t remember shoplifting it. She couldn’t even remember when she started smoking, she realized. It’d been at least a couple centuries, she knew she’d started before anyone had even heard of cigarettes. Cigars? It had just been a part of her life for so long she barely noticed it changing. Practically scenery.

She looked the cigarette over and grimaced. She couldn’t remember opening the carton, so who knew how old it was? Probably stale, would definitely taste like shit. Still smokable, though. She heard some people refreshed their cigarettes by rehydrating them or something, but she never bothered. She’d never cared enough. It wouldn’t kill her any faster. She held up her other hand away from the cig and snapped her nails together again; quitting must’ve shifted the metal content in her nails, because each snap produced a shower of sparks much larger than she ever got before. It used to be she would spend two or three minutes snapping her nails until she lit it or just gave up and bothered someone else for a light. Now she could probably light one in two or three snaps. Zdrada closed her eyes.

She put the cigarette back in the carton and set it aside, leaning back and focusing on her new formula instead. Inhale deeply. Make sure the mouth is full of air and hold. Pump smoke out of the auxiliary lungs into the mouth. Blow air out of the front of the mouth in a thin stream until completely replaced; the process is finished when the stream consists entirely of smoke. Propel the smoke out of the mouth by exhaling with both sets of lungs simultaneously. She watched the cloud of woodsmoke, bigger than anything she’d produced with tobacco, drift away into the lovely night. Then whipped her hand away as a booted foot smashed down on the carton.

“I WOULD BE DISAPPOINTED IN YOU IF I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND HOW DIFFICULT IT WAS TO BREAK A NICOTINE ADDICTION,” Judgment shouted down to her as she glared back. Zdrada filed the statement away as she stood up.

“Bitch, I haven’t smoked in like a week.”

“THEN HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT CLOUD?” she bellowed quizzically.

“I make that shit naturally. Okay, look, I’ll show you.” Inhale, hold, pump, blow…

“SHOW ME WHAT oh, I wasn’t expecting that. It doesn’t smell like sulfur, either–”

Zdrada propelled the smoke into Judgment’s face hard enough to blow her hair back and laughed as she coughed and sputtered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Lucifer bankrolls Helltaker's life, there's no way he could pay for the food and hospital bills on his own.
> 
> Q: Why are Modeus and Pandemonica in a relationship?  
> A: They're both really into bondage.


	3. Chapter 3

Three days later, Modeus and Pandemonica melted down again in the back lawn. The shouted insults roused the house’s late sleepers (Zdrada, Malina, Justice), leaving them stumbling half-awake into the midmorning sun. The rest of the house had already set up a viewing station with lawn chairs, tables, soft drinks, and popcorn, and the three sought out the remaining chairs and sat down to watch the spectacle.

Zdrada flopped down in the chair next to Azazel. “They bring up anything new today?”

“No, same as always,” she responded, watching with the same intensity she did everything else. No notepad this time; she’d long ago gotten every scrap of information she could out of their relationship. “I don’t think they’ll cross any lines with each other today. It’s a pretty quiet argument by their standards.”

“Eh, spoil my fun. Popcorn.” Azazel obliged without looking, grabbing a bag off a nearby table and handing it off to Zdrada, who settled in for the long haul.

As per usual, their argument cooled down from competing screaming fits to a resentful endurance match over the next couple hours. Other members of the house started drifting back in to go about their daily chores (or lack thereof); the rest drifted into conversations or went back to sleep in the sun. Her skin itched, the last parts of the withdrawal reemerging with her boredom. Finally, Zdrada lost patience, yelled “fuck it, this show sucks,” and stood up to go back inside. Pandemonica intercepted her before she reached the door.

“What, were we boring you?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Zdrada shrugged.

“You know, I saw you smoking out front yesterday.”

Zdrada bristled. The conversation among the remaining theatergoers dropped off.

“That’s a hell of an accusation, ‘Monica. You know I don’t smoke anymore.”

“Then you must just breathe out toxic gases, because the clouds you sent out into the road last night certainly weren’t pure air.” Pandemonica’s eyes shined, focused and sharp.

“Oh, that wasn’t cigarette smoke.” Inhale, hold, pump…

“Why are you grinning at me like that?…Why are your teeth smoking?”

Pursing your lips and letting the smoke out, she’d concluded, looked pretty lame. She’d finally found the answer last night. If she clenched her teeth just right, the smoke would drive the air out between them just fine. Less efficient, but much cooler.

The resulting torrent she propelled into Pandemonica’s face actually pushed her back a step, leaving her scraping off soot and staring daggers, teeth bared and ready to fight. But Modeus broke the spell when she sprinted to her girlfriend’s side, fussing over her to Pandemonica’s angry protests. Instead of waiting for them to sort themselves out, Zdrada just turned around and walked inside.

Malina sidled up next to her halfway to the kitchen. “Did you just show restraint?”

“That shit is gonna be hell to get out of her hair, Malinka.”

“No, I mean, normally you would have just taken a swing at her.”

And she would have, Zdrada realized, since she was usually extremely grumpy in the morning, even more than usual. After she’d gone several hours without a smoke. Huh.

“Yeah, I probably would have,” she said, opening the pantry and fishing out a cereal box.

***

Zdrada usually slept like the dead, but a week later she woke up in the middle of the night and found she just couldn’t get comfortable. Normally, she’d deal with the issue by heading out for a smoke, but with that off the table she went out back and took a seat on the back steps, staring aimlessly into the night. Like most of the demons, Zdrada nearly had a panic attack when she first looked at the endless vault of the empty sky (though she’d kept her cool enough not to show it). These days she just liked to look at the stars.

The door opened quietly behind her and Lucifer stepped out. She stiffened. “Oh, Miss Lucifer?…Your Majesty?…”

“Oh, please, it’s Lucy,” she said, waving it off elegantly as she stepped down onto the grass. “We’ve lived in the same house long enough, I think we’ve moved past pleasantries.”

The two rested awkwardly in the night. Zdrada let her hackles down halfway.

“I wanted to speak with you about something,” Lucy said, taking in a small breath. “I hear we have something in common.”

“…So they weren’t kidding?”

“No, and it took me longer to stop then it did you.” She paused. “It doesn’t ever fully go away, you know. But you do learn ways to deal with it.” She paused again. “I think I’d like to strike a deal with you.”

Zdrada snorted at the irony.

“Hmm?”

“Sorry, nothing. So, a deal?” 

“Yes. I realized that every few decades the temptation becomes too much and I go back to the well, so to speak. I’m willing to bet something similar will happen to you someday. However, I’ve learned that one slip does not forever compromise you. It’s a process that never ends, but one you can continue indefinitely. How about this? If one of us spots the other slipping, we step in and act to remove the issue from both our lives. We both know what it’s like, and so we both know what it means to assist each other like that.”

“…I think I’d like that. Deal.”

“Then I believe it is settled. I look forward to working with you. Good night, Zdrada,” she said, quietly opening the door and reentering the house.

It took Zdrada longer than she’d have liked to settle down after the meeting, but after an hour or so she finally felt tired enough to return to bed. And then Malina walked out and threw herself down next to her.

“Been a while since we really talked,” Zdrada opened.

“Yeah, sorry. I just…didn’t know what to say. You seem happier now.”

“Yeah. Still a bitch, but a happy bitch. Well, happier. Nice to have some control in my life, you know?”

Malina took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you about something.”

“As much shit as I give you, Malina, I’m still your sister. Shoot.”

“I…” Malina sighed. “It’s like, no matter how much vodka I drink, it doesn’t even give me a buzz anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading my story about a demon girl quitting cigarettes.


End file.
